Tide Golf Team Readies for SEC Championship Weekend
4/25/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
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TUSCALOOSA – The University of Alabama men’s golf team will gather with the league’s 11 other teams in Sea Island, Ga., this weekend, April 25-27, to compete in the Southeastern Conference Men’s Golf Championships.
The tournament is held at Seaside Golf Course which is par 70 with a layout of 6,550 yards. Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Tennessee, South Carolina and Vanderbilt will compete for the league’s team and individual championships. Alabama’s five golfers competing include Lars Brovold, Clint Provost, Wesley Pate, Austin Hynson and Mac Butler.
Brovold leads Alabama with his 72.33 stroke average in 10 tournament appearances this season. Provost is next at 73.71 in nine tournaments.
Seven of the league’s teams are ranked in this week’s Golfweek/Sagarin Men’s Team Rankings top 30 including No. 9 Florida, No. 12 Auburn, No. 13 Georgia, No. 19 Arkansas, No. 23 Tennessee, No. 27 Vanderbilt and No. 28 South Carolina. Alabama has been ranked among the top 30 this season as well.
The conference championships kick off with a practice round on Thursday. The teams play three rounds of 18 holes beginning on Friday and concluding on Sunday. It’s the third consecutive year the event has been played at Seaside Golf Course which was built in the 1920’s and has been played on by some of the sport’s greatest names of the last few decades, from Bobby Jones to Sam Snead to Davis Love III.
“It’s a great test and there won’t be any accidental winners on that course,” says Alabama head men’s golf coach Jay Seawell who is in his first season as Alabama’s head coach. “You have to play well to win at Sea Island. We are a team that is capable of playing well, although our scores haven’t been what we’ve wanted lately. We have to play to our ability, and if we do that, we have an excellent chance of winning.”
Alabama, a 2002 NCAA tournament participant is led by Brovold who set the school’s all-time low round record with the 63 he shot in the opening round of a tournament hosted by Vanderbilt this past fall. Alabama has finished under par as a team in three different tournaments this season, the latest of those coming with a two-under par team finish at a tournament hosted by No. 6 ranked Augusta State in early April.
The league’s gathering is a strong one with a field that Seawell believes will find a large percentage continuing play at the NCAA Regionals May 15-17.
“I think you’ll see Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and ourselves advance to regionals,” said Seawell who coached Augusta State to a fifth place national finish last season before taking the Alabama job in late summer. “Kentucky has an outside shot and probably will get into regionals. I think you’ll see Arkansas and South Carolina advance as well. So we could be looking at eight of the SEC’s 12 teams at NCAA’s. That just shows the strength of our conference. I’m really fired up about this conference tournament, particularly with it being my first. I know what these men on this team are capable of achieving, and I’m looking forward to seeing them make it happen.”
Butler has competed in only four of Alabama’s 10 tournaments this season, but Seawell believes the St. Simons’ native’s familiarity with his hometown area’s course will be a plus. “We put Mac in because of his talent and also because his local knowledge of the course will be a great asset to him and the team. And we’ll rely on our one-two punch of Lars Brovold and Clint Provost. If they play well, we have a really good chance.”
